Types of Rolling Contact Bearings

What is Bearing?

A bearing is defined “as a part of a machine that allows one part to rotate or move in contact with another part with as little friction as possible”.  Bearings may be classified broadly according to the motions they allow and according to their principle of operation as well as by the directions of applied loads they can handle.  Additional functions include the transmission of loads and enabling the accurate location of components.  A bearing may have to sustain severe static as well as cyclic loads while serving reliably in difficult environments.

Types of rolling contact bearings

1. Deep groove bearing: balls fit well into the deep grooves, enabling the bearing to sustain moderate axial loads in both directions in addition to radial loads. The bearing illustrated here has a single row of balls.

2. Thrust ball bearing: can support an axial load in one direction. Not designed to accommodate radial loads. The bearing components can easily be separated.  Barstools and Lazy Susan turntables use this type of bearing.

3. Tapered roller bearing: Both of the rings and the rollers are tapered in order to simultaneously support axial and radial loads. The ratio of the loads supported depends on the angle between the roller and bearing axes. A greater angle helps support a larger axial load.

4. Self-aligning ball bearing: two sets of balls run on a pair of grooves on the inner ring, with a single outer-ring concave surface, allowing the bearing to accommodate misalignment of the shaft.

 

 5. Angular contact ball bearing: This particular design of angular contact ball bearing is able to accommodate a large thrust load in one direction, in addition to radial loads.

6. Needle roller bearing: This has long and thin rollers – the design is suited for applications where radial space is limited.

7. Spherical roller bearing: Because of the angular contact between the rollers and raceways, the bearing is able to accommodate both axial and radial loads; the double set of rollers also permits the bearing to
accommodate shaft misalignment.  The rollers are not cylindrical, and hence the adjective `spherical’.

8. Cylindrical roller bearing: The cylindrical rollers are able to accommodate large radial loads. This is a
single-row bearing.